


In the Shade of Sunlight

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Cross-Generation Relationship, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-26
Updated: 2007-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There wasn't a trial before, and why should this be any different?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Shade of Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Written after a discussion about rarepairs on my LiveJournal took a left turn at common sense.

Sometimes, Remus watches Sirius with a cold, greying look that says he thinks Sirius has lost his mind.

+

In the end, Sirius passes his own sentence.

The offer is grudging. A stilted silence presses on the room; Vance shifts uncomfortably in her seat and Shacklebolt gnaws at the side of his thumb. Sirius knows before he opens his mouth that Dumbledore will accept -- desperate times, desperate measures -- and he looks away when Dumbledore nods. A murmur runs through the Order, a strained noise that is apprehensive and appreciative at once, and behind the familiar half-moon twinkle, Sirius sees the mindless dark of Azkaban.

There wasn't a trial before, and why should this be any different?

+

The house greets them with a sharp _Contractus Nerviosa_. The first one through the door -- McGonagall, Sirius will recall later, as he sneaks a bottle of Odgen's Old up to his room like he's still at school and is James snickering into his shoulder -- drops like a sack of potatoes and slips into seizures. The air is stale and thick; Sirius smells dust and madness, and he quietly wonders what the walls are waiting for. Molly sighs (damp is creeping across the ceiling and chewing slowly at the rotting drapes) and clucks her tongue (McGonagall twitches on a floor so splintered it looks like someone took to it with an axe), and her fists settle in the sudden curve of her hips. Sirius wanders toward the liquor cabinet, and Dumbledore floos Pomfrey for the countercurse.

Death changed his mother into something he doesn't remember to forget not to recognise. She begins to scream before Molly's first pot of tea approaches a boil, and Sirius' hands shake as her tirade rattles against the crumbling walls. He's thirteen and disloyal. Sixteen and disowned. Nineteen and an only child. Her voice sparks a chill that skitters over his skin, and he shivers despite the firewhiskey curled in his belly and the sultry heat of midsummer in London.

Azkaban had been quiet.

(when the dementors were indisposed)

(when his cousin wasn't laughing)

+

Grimmauld Place is stuffed with a surfeit of Weasleys, a slow burn of freckles topped with red hair and easy smiles. They are too bright; Sirius has to shade his eyes from the sharp flare of copper and the sudden flash of white teeth. After years of bitter silence, laughter is foreign around the edges, and Sirius knows in his bones that the house is not best pleased. The stairs creak under his feet when he breathes. Ginny's hair tumbles over her shoulders, swept away from her face with a neat, black ribbon; if Sirius looks too quickly he sees Lily in the corners of his eyes, and Lily reminds him of James reminds him of Harry, but James is dead and Harry is currently a Muggle and Sirius and Lily never really got on.

Sirius eats inside a thicket of chatter: one Weasley two Weasleys three Weasleys four. He tries his best to learn the names of the children, but names are one of the many things that slither through the holes in his memory.

The youngest boy -- Ron, Sirius will tell himself later, in the shower, of all places -- offers a game of wizards chess after the sun slips from the sky and the musty air surrenders to Molly's pork roast and potatoes. He's an odd shadow, a lazy, adolescent sprawl of too-long limbs and blue eyes hidden under a fall of orange fringe. Sirius pauses. The drawing room is cold, defying the fire that's crackling merrily in the corner, and through the window, the sky is a red and purple bruise.

He has never cared for chess.

The others try to keep Sirius entertained, as if they fear what will happen if he's left to his own devices. This boy is simply wants attention; he’s bored, and his family -- _Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, Ginny,_ Sirius will repeat to himself before he climbs into bed -- is too busy to play with him.

Sirius resents charity, but selfishness is something he can respect.

+

Lunch is sandwiches on fluffy bread with too much mustard, and the afternoon sun is a tawdry yellow. The conversation drifts to the state of the Ministry; Arthur's long hours, Percy's insufferable behaviour, Fudge's inability to sort elbows from asshats. Molly flutters around the table like a hummingbird; self-important, busy on the surface, and buzzing in a way only she understands, and Sirius hides a healthy tot of single-malt in his tea.

His hands are dirty from mucking around in the long-neglected basement. In the hallway, the house-elf wails at the pile of stuff Sirius intends to chuck in the bin.

"I hate corned beef," Ron says sourly as his mother flits away, and Lily -- no, Ginny. _Ginny Ginny Ginny_ \-- quietly offers to transfigure it into ham.

+

The tapestry watches him.

It stretches across the olive-coloured wall like a map, an atlas of insanity and pureblood pride, and the gold stitching flickers as it catches the candlelight. He breathes, hands hovering, listening as the curtains buzz with the force of one hundred doxies. He brushes a scorch-mark -- Alphard -- and the charred material edging the burn is stiff and rough against his skin.

The writing-desk shakes; its legs groan as the drawer rattles inside its wooden prison.

Silent and dead, Regulus mocks him, and Sirius follows the line that's meant to link them until its swallowed by frayed, black thread. His brother's a shadow now, an incomplete memory clouded in bitterness. Sirius hasn't thought of him in years; the dementors were far too fond of his failures.

He wonders about the others -- Isla, Phineas, Marius, Cedrella -- the ones he never knew, the ones blasted to ash before his parents were born. The door creaks open; Sirius snags a fingernail on a loose thread and wonders why these cousins were cast to sea.

"Sirius?"

"Oh," Sirius replies. Ron looms in the doorway, an derelict oil-lamp clutched in his hands. "Mind the doxies."

"Right," Ron mumbles, casting a furtive glance at the curtains. "Have you seen my sister? Only, she's meant to be helping with dinner, and mum'll put me on it if she doesn't turn up."

Sirius shakes his head. "I haven't the foggiest. She's not in here, anyway."

"Dreadful thing, innit?" Ron asks, jerking his chin toward the tapestry. "I was looking at it the other night -- Fred made me touch it on a dare." He shifts, and the the strange shadows from his oil-lamp swirl around his feet. "You're not on it."

"No," Sirius says quietly. "I wouldn't be."

(Isla, Phineas, Marius, Cedrella, Alphard, Andromeda, Sirius)

(here they be disappointments)

(here there be dragons)

+

"Checkmate."

"What? Where?"

Ron's smile is bright against the shadows.

+

His magic is erratic. Unpredictable. Wild.

Sirius sits at the bottom of the stairs with his shoulder braced against the banister and weathered wand across his lap. His own was snapped by the Ministry, four minutes before a portkey pulled him to the North Sea. He found this one -- ebony, phoenix-feather, ten and three-fourths inches -- in the attic, inside a box of rubbish marked Pollux Black.

" _Scourgify_."

The carpet doesn't deign to reply.

+

Ron is a shock; the room is dark and stale around him. The hippogriff -- Buckbeak, Sirius will remember in the morning, when Molly mentions it at breakfast -- sleeps, one wing butted against Ron's knee. It's bent and freckled, and Sirius hangs quietly in the doorway.

"Mum's after me," Ron explains, in a voice soured with the smell of bird droppings.

"Oh?" Sirius asks carefully. "What's got her back up?"

"Nothing," says Ron, pulling a loose thread on his shorts until it snaps. "She's mental, is all. I'm tired of cleaning."

Sirius sighs, a hollow sound swallowed by the whispers of the walls. They're all tired of cleaning; the house is slowly wearing them down.

Ron shifts, his bare feet shuffling over the dusty floor. "I wish Harry was here."

He looks small and tired; Molly is slowly wearing _him_ down. He doesn't quite fit into the molds left behind by his brothers, which is something Sirius understands.

"I haven't seen you," Sirius says, and the door shrieks as he lets himself out.

Downstairs, his mother is screaming.

(Regulus was the better son)

(Regulus was the true heir)

+

He hasn't been outside in weeks.

He cannot breathe, and a chill is hiding under his skin. The house pretends otherwise; the others wear shorts and light shirts and lament the endless summer, but Sirius is cold. Everything is frosted. His mother's voice chases him up the stairs only to crystallise in the corners, and the faded wallpaper is freezing him alive.

The walls are wood instead of stone, and his spectres are ginger and freckled, but nothing has changed. He still jumps at shadows. He still sleeps to dream. He still watches the sky empty of colour from behind a pane of glass.

+

The girl -- Marlene. Hestia. _Hermione._ \-- arrives on the heels of a slow and humid morning with a trunk of books and a guarded smile. The sky looks thick and overcooked as it squeezes through the kitchen curtains, and faced with a new indignity, the house shakes with impotent fury. It quivers each time Hermione breathes, disgusted on principle and sickened to its foundation. His mother rages in a voice so shrill and curdled Sirius almost wishes for the silence of stone.

Hermione is everywhere, invading all of Sirius' carefully marked territory. Molly bustles at this new (excuse) chance to be useful, and tired, Sirius retreats to the stairs with an aching head and a not-so-weak tea. The firewhiskey burns his throat and curls sourly in his belly, but the chill is stubborn, and Sirius finds warmth in the sharp bite of the banister against his shoulderblades.

Ron skips their nightly game in favour of watching her read. Their couch is both dusty and old, and an exaggerated space waits awkwardly between them. Ron looks up as the hallway groans with Sirius' approach. Silence creeps outward, holing up in the corners and pausing under Sirius' feet, and Ron chews at his lower lip.

"Hey, Sirius."

"Hey" -- and Ron's name twists around Sirius' tongue, because he almost says Remus, or maybe Regulus, even though Remus was balls at chess and Sirius could never be bothered to play with his brother.

There's no fire, but Ron is very orange. As Padfoot settles in front of the cold hearth Sirius thinks he would taste like sunlight.

+

Of all the things he's lost, he misses Remus the most.

Those thirteen years have risen between them like a wall, and the scant few months they spent hiding in Remus' seaside hovel only served to estrange them further. They are wary of each other, careful to the point of clumsiness. The bridges between them are tenuous and invisible -- a murderer they cannot find and a boy who will be a Muggle for another handful of days -- and at times, their aborted conversations are louder than the walls. Sirius' silent apologies are heavy on his tongue and bitter as they die in the back of his throat.

"... and then you fell down the stairs," says Remus, recounting one of their school-time adventures.

"Right," replies Sirius woodenly. Remus is tired and grey and painfully unfamiliar, and while Sirius recalls James and dungbombs and a portrait of a stroppy knight, the pieces lay jumbled, and Sirius cannot fit them into Remus' whole.

"And then Filch came by, remember? Just as you came to a stop," continues Remus. "And James was out cold -- under the cloak, of course -- but right there, in the centre of the hallway, and you were in a heap, shouting your head off, and--"

Creaking, the door swings open, framing Ron in darkness and shadows.

"Sorry." His voice is quiet, hesitant and sleep-coarse, and he scrubs his face with his hand, ruffling his fringe with long fingers.

"Rough night?" asks Sirius. A leer crawls over his words uninvited, and Remus' teacup meets the table sharply.

"There's no food, if that's what you're after," says Remus lightly. Too lightly. "You put paid to nearly everything at dinner, and the twins did for the rest."

"No," says Ron, with an almost-smile. "My wardrobe started rattling. It woke me up, and I can't get back to sleep now, and I thought maybe Sirius would like to play chess."

"It's a bit late for that," says Remus, but Sirius is already on his feet.

"Don't worry," says Sirius, and the angle of Remus' frown stops his hand from ghosting over Ron's arm. "I'm too tired to put up much of a fight."

+

"Checkmate."

"Bloody hell."

Sirius finds he hasn't forgotten how to smile.

+

Ron doesn't taste like sunlight, unless sunlight is the same as spit and boy and whatever they ate for dinner. Sirius doesn't care; he's warm for the first time in weeks. Ron makes a noise -- choked and half-lost in Sirius' shoulder -- and Sirius can't breathe. The air is too heavy, and the house is screaming so loudly the Weasleys and the shadows should be running down the stairs.

They're _on_ the stairs. Sirius twists; ancient wood creaks and his elbow bangs off the banister. Ron is underneath him, stretched across the steps like the dusty, balding carpet. Sirius can't stop kissing him. He has orange fringe between his fingers and freckles under his hands. Ron hitches up, his legs tangling with Sirius', and he's hard against Sirius' thigh. Sirius pulls at Ron's flies, and the sharp rasp of his zip cuts through the hum of the walls gossiping with the floor.

Sirius presses down, his moan hidden in the curve of Ron's neck, and Ron's hand is there, sweaty fingers worming inside his trousers. Sirius is close, but this was over before it started. Ron is young and warm and more alive than what Azkaban left behind, and it's been almost fifteen years since Sirius has touched someone else's skin.

(sometimes Sirius thinks that skin belonged to Remus)

(there are days he wishes he could remember, but there are also days he's glad he can't)

Ron arches under Sirius and drags his hand up Sirius' cock. Sirius kisses him again, lost in the wet slide of lips and tongue, and the house disappears in a flare of white.

+

And suddenly, there is Harry.

He is their reason -- the reason they are hiding, the reason they've been waiting, and now he's returned. He fills the kitchen from his seat at the table, ducking his head as everyone watches him eat.

Hermione calms. Molly makes biscuits, humming tunelessly as she mixes the dough. Something explodes between the twins' hands, and Remus laughs the way he did when they were boys. Ron's smiles are still too bright, but they are different now, wide and open and unrestricted.

(and not for Sirius)

And suddenly, everything is horrifically, painfully, endlessly _normal_.

Except that it isn't, and really, how could it be?


End file.
